Hugh MacLeod
Cartoons drawn on the back of business cards
Hi, I'm Hugh.
My life is committed to drawing little illustrations that spread messages, inspire people, help businesses kick butt & support causes.
Gapingvoid is based upon the science of how these cartoons work.
If we can help you or your business, please email us here.
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January 11, 2011
The cartoon above came to me suddenly, while I was writing the previous blog post about #Intel and my recent trip to #CES Vegas.
Yes, we are incredible beings.
Yes, we live in incredible times.
And as long as there is still one person on the planet who doesn’t believe this, then there’s still work to be done.
That’s all I have to say. I hope TO GOD that you concur. Thanks.
January 4, 2011
So this was my idea for my client, Intel. You know, the big microprocessor company. “Silicon Chips” etc.
First I drew a wee doodle of a microprocessor, like the one above.
Then I added a tagline to the image. “The processor is an expression of human potential”.
This was my “blank canvas” to start with, as it were.
And then I started to fill said blank canvas with images. As demonstrated below:
The images themselves don’t matter per se. The fact they were drawn by me doesn’t matter, either. That’s not the point.
The point is, as always, human potential. And what Intel can do to help said human potential reveal itself.
“The processor is an expression of human potential”. Exactly.
Then I added the Intel logo and their tagline, “Visibly Smart”.
We printed these up as fine art prints. I’ll be signing them and handing them out at the Intel stand at CES (Consumer Electronics Show) this week in LAs Vegas.
Please check out scoop.intel.com for more info. I hope to see you there. Thanks.
January 2, 2011
I drew this cartoon this morning. My first of the year.
The fellow in the cartoon is “Gloop”, a character I’ve been using since college. He pops up in my work now and again. Part Alter-Ego, part Everyman.
Most people who read gapingvoid are creative people; that’s not just an opinion, that’s just how it worked out. This cartoon is for them. For you.
“Bring new light to what life might be.” That’s what Creativity means. That’s why you were born; that’s why you are here. To bring some new angle to the human condition– if not to the broader world in general, then at least to your family and the people around you.
You don’t have to believe this– this drive may not be your drive, may not be the thing that propels you forward. That’s fine.
However, if you DO have that capacity within yourself and you DON’T act upon it, then everything around you turns to desert.
“Bring new light to what life might be” is my wish for you in 2011. Godspeed.
December 28, 2010
Another new cartoon for the Rackspace series.…
Basically, I took the old “George” idea and re-jigged it, adding the trademark Rackspace red & black.
And hey, it worked.
I see this cartoon going in the slide deck of Rackspace’s recruiters.
We’re not a ‘normal’ company etc. It’s OK not to be ‘normal’ etc. ‘Normal’ is boring etc.
It’s easy for a small company to have a distinct personality. Much harder when the company has grown a lot, like Rackspace has done in the last few years.
Much harder to NOT be normal…
[Commission your own cartoon from gapingvoid etc.]
December 27, 2010
[Download printable version here etc.]
This is my latest cartoon from the series I’m doing for Rackspace.
One thing that Rackspace is very proud of is their customer base. Both in terms of quality and quantity. Not only do they have some really wicked customers, they have lots of them.
And no, I’m not just being nice because they’re my client. Some of them ARE awesome. A lot of amazing companies that you’ve heard of and admire.
So… what’s wrong with wanting more where that came from?
What is wrong with wanting THE BEST customer base in the world, and adjusting your business plan accordingly?
And what is wrong with declaring that to the frickin’ world?
To be honest, I don’t just see this cartoon as an internal motivational poster whatsit. I also see it as a full blown advertisement– one that could easily go into magazines like Wired or Inc.
What’s wrong with declaring to the world, “Here’s what we’re going after with a vengeance”, rather than the usual “Here’s why should buy our wonderful product” drivel?
And the cartoon character: why not make him stressed out and antsy– like real entrepreneurs are– rather than the usual happy-happy-joy-joy that most advertisements run with?
Why not talk to people about the ACTUAL world we live in, rather than the irritating fantasy world that Madison Ave created?
Why the hell not?
We’re all going to be dead in 100 years. In the meantime, why not try to rip the face off the dragon?
Exactly.
December 20, 2010
[A different angle on the Angel Gabriel etc. You can get the print here etc.]
This is why I love the internet…
In the old, pre-internet days, if you were a cartoonist like me and wanted to be successful, you pretty much had to be famous.
Not hugely famous necessarily, but somebody with a pretty major publishing gig. Like Peanuts, Doonesbury, Dilbert, Garfield or Bloom County, or some of The New Yorker heavyweights like Steinberg or Ronald Searle.
And those gigs were hard to come by. You needed a big time publication syndicate or media company to back you. And then the newspapers, the advertisers and the media landscape in general had to be on board as well.
And of course, all this required a VERY large audience. Millions of people, literally. Just so you could make an OK living.
As we all know, the more people you need to keep happy, the less likely that’s going to happen, or at least, the less you can control. Mass audiences are a fickle, unpredictable bunch. And they have a nasty habit of ignoring people like you completely, and going for people like Justin Bieber or Paris Hilton instead.
Which is why I never took this route. Too many variables I couldn’t control. And my work was never mainstream enough, anyway.
Thank God the internet came along and changed everything. Suddenly I found myself making a damn good living, without having all those mainstream hoops to jump through first. Just by doodling wee, non-mainstream cartoons all day, to what by old mainstream standards would be a TINY audience that I reach via this blog, Twitter and my newsletter.
This is made possible because the web, as we all know, is a SUPERB way to sell relatively high-end products. In my case, private, client-based commissions are worth THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of times more than the advertising eyeballs that ultimately pay for the newspaper cartoonist’s mortgage. Of course they are. Not to mention, the commissions are fun and intellectually interesting to work on.
Which is why my advice for anyone trying to succeed on the web is, make the highest-end product you can, and then target the tiny handful of people– the microaudience- who are likely to buy it. Forget the masses. Targeting the latter is too much like trying to win the lottery– though great when it happens (however unlikely), there are just too many damn variables outside your control.
Any questions?
December 8, 2010
Over at Things I Wish My Phone Did, I’ve started accepting other people’s idea submissions for new cartoons.
The first one I used was from David Herrold, pictured above. Thanks, David!
Sure, Things I Wish My Phone Did started life out as a small side project on behalf of my client, Line2, bit something tells me that it could be something much bigger, something much more interactive. There are a lot of people out there with strong ideas and opinions about “What a phone could be”.
All new ideas– both for new cartoons and ideas for where take the website– gratefully received. Just ping me on Twitter, preferably using the #ThingsIWishMyPhoneDid hashtag. This could be huge. Thanks!
December 1, 2010
A “cube grenade” commission I just completed for Thoughtworks, the global IT consulting company.
Thoughtworks has this term, “Watermelon”, to describe a project that goes terribly wrong, that looks all well and good on the outside (green), but as the project comes to an end, turns out to be a huge ol’ expensive mess on the inside (red). I just took the idea and ran with it.
We’re going to turn this design into a 100 large framed prints, as Christmas presents for their clients. A fun little “conversation starter” to hang on their walls… which of course, is what the the whole cube grenade idea is all about. “Art With Purpose” etc.
Fun!
November 21, 2010
Another cartoon from the ThingsIWishMyPhoneDid.com riff….
This cartoon was sent out today in the newsletter. The idea was inspired by the book by my friend, Seth Godin.
Read Seth’s original 2005 blog post on the subject. It’s considered a classic.
We live in HUGELY exciting times. You do know that, right?
[download the printable version here etc.]
This is the latest cube grenade I just did for Rackspace.
It’s one of my favorites I’ve done so far. [More Rackspace work is here.]
I hope you like it, but it’s OK if you don’t. Here’s why I’m partial:
I am enjoying my gig with Rackspace. Even if it’s still early days, they’re letting me play around with a new, HUGE idea. Yes, I am stoked.
November 9, 2010
Another cartoon from the ThingsIWishMyPhoneDid.com riff.…
November 7, 2010
Just when you thought it was safe to go back into the water: Another cartoon for hackthephonecompany.com.
Something deliciously wrong about hipsters who get overly attached to their iPhones– or to any Apple product in general. A rich vein for any cartoonist etc.
I just did this cube grenade for Fizz, the well-known Word-Of-Mouth marketing agency [They did all that ground-breaking stuff for Pabst Blue Ribbon etc.].
This idea is so simple… do I really have to explain it? Exactly.
[download the printable version here etc.]
Another cube grenade I just did for my client, Rackspace.
They were a small company not that long ago. They no longer are. Figure it out.
November 5, 2010
A cube grenade I just did for our ciient, HNI Insurance.
A lot of HNI’s trucking clients operate with profit margins of around 2%. Ouch.
I like the cartoon just because it’s brutally in-your-face and to the point. No messing around.
Of course, the easiest way for their clients to increase their margin, is to lower their risk. Which is where HNI comes in. Ker-chiing.
[You can buy the print here etc.]
Friday [yesterday] marked the 200th cartoon we sent out on the newsletter. We sent out the cartoon above. Very cool.
Thanks to everybody for supporting it. It’s been quite an adventure so far. Not to mention, a lot of fun. Rock on.
October 29, 2010
So I just did this cartoon for my client, HNI.
Basically, the truckers that are most profitable for any trucking company are generally the most hard to insure. The ones who score highest on safety make less make less money for the company… and then you’ve got these Feds coming in with “CSA 2010″, making it even more complicated. Lucky truckers…
The cartoon by itself, is not that interesting.
The fact that HNI are the only people in the insurance industry willing to talk about it in the open, are willing to have a “Smarter Conversation” about it, is interesting.
At least to me…
Comments Off October 18, 2010
[Download the printable version here.]
A couple of days ago my buddy, Robert Scoble (himself a Rackspace employee) twittered the question, “How do do you amplify a start-up culture inside a big company?”
A damn good question, Robert. I thought it would make a good piece of art, hence the cartoon above. More specifically, I thought it would make a good image to go on the back of a Rackspace business card.
Rackspace is a big company (3,000 employees), but not big enough where they can no longer remember when they were a small company. So maybe it’s better to start a conversation (which is what handing out a business card does, ideally) with a pertinent question, rather than the usual “Here’s why you should buy our stuff” shpeel…
October 16, 2010
THE HUGHTRAIN MkII
1. The market for something to believe in is infinite. We are here to find meaning. We are here to help other people do the same. Everything else is secondary. We humans want to believe in our own species. And we want people, companies and products in our lives that make it easier to do so. That is human nature.
2. The most important word in marketing is “complicity”. It’s not enough for the customer to love your product. They have to love your process as well.
3. Your customers are becoming smarter about your market a lot faster than you are. Thanks to the internet, your customers are able to talk to each other. They are able to find better information about your product than you are able of willing to give them, much quicker than you are capable of giving them. The conversation will happen with or without you, you’re better off joining in.
4. The primary job of an advertiser is not to communicate benefit, but to communicate conviction. It’s not about what you have; it’s about why it matters.
5. A company’s primary role is to function as an “idea amplifier”. A company’s primary role is not to make or do stuff. Making and doing are mere subsets.
6. The future of advertising is internal. The hardest part of a CEO’s job is sharing his enthusiasm with his colleagues, especially when a lot of them are making one-fiftieth of what he is. Selling the company to the general public is a piece of cake compared to selling it to the actual people who work for it.
7. Your job is no longer about selling. Your job is about firing off as many synapses in your customer’s brain as possible. The more synapses that are fired off, the more dopamines are released. Dopamines are seriously addictive. The more dopamines you release, the more the customer will come back for more. Your customer thinks he is coming back to you for sane, rational, value-driven reasons. He is wrong. He is coming back to feed.
8. Good-bye, Messages. Hello, Social Gesture. A well-executed marketing campaign is an act of love.
9. Control the conversation by improving the conversation. Choosing to have a “smarter conversation” with the market is not a marketing decision; it’s a moral decision.
10. The more porous the membrane that separates your business from your market, the easier it is for both parties to be in alignment. And the more porous the membrane, the easier it is to fix non-alignment.
October 12, 2010
Tens of thousands of people now get the Daily Cartoon Newsletter. The list grows and grows, and every day we get lots and lots of mail from people showing the love.
But the NUMBER ONE benefit to subscribe is that each day, for 24 hours, the cartoon de jour– the print– is available at around 30– 60% off the usual price. Just the day it’s initially published and after that, it goes to full price. So, all the hardcore print junkies are buying them on the issue day, and after that, they and everyone else pays retail.
There is a secret offer code on the bottom of each email, that reveals the discount of the day. Just use it when you go to checkout.
Start the day with an ass-kicking cartoon and maybe save some money as well etc.
Sign up here, and join the club. Rock on.
October 6, 2010
[Download the printable version here etc.]
Rackspace likes to describe their customer support as “Fanatical” [It’s right there on their homepage. Go see.].
Which got me thinking, what does being “fanatical” actually mean? What are its real-world implications?
So I drew a cartoon with my take on it…
October 4, 2010
[Download printable version here.] [thingsiwishmyphonedid.com] [#smarterconversations]
September 25, 2010
Things I wish my phone did. Dot com. It’s a website we’re building for our client, Line2.
It should be up in a wee bit… we’re hoping to have a lot of fun with it– an “Idea Amplifier”, as it were.
Re. The cartoon above: No matter how much you love your new state-of-the-art phone, it can’t love you back [For now, that is].
[Food for thought] From Seth Godin, May, 2007:
Now, of course, most blogs are one-person operations. Which means that successful blogs are often run by restless, outward-bound people in a hurry. And a lot of bloggers either have day jobs or passionate sidelines. I think that’s a good thing, even when they fail. It’s frustrating for me to hear, “stick to your blogging,” when people criticize a project created by a blogger – because it’s part of the blogging, part of the learning, part of what’s unfolding. I’d rather read a book that’s informed by the activities (not the reporting) of the writer, and I’d rather read a blog that’s based on the successes (and failures) of the blogger.
Which brings us to Hugh MacLeod and his work for Microsoft. Some critics think he’s selling out. I don’t. I think he’s having a huge impact on an organization –from the outside– at the same time that he demonstrates how just about any large organization can rethink its role in the world. And he’s doing it in front of all of us, without a net.
August 20, 2010
[Welcome, PSFK visitors! I hope you’ll check out my “Daily Cartoon” newsletter, Thanks.]
Every week, cartoonist Hugh MacLeod will draw an original cartoon about an idea from a popular or noteworthy PSFK post.
This week’s cartoon inspired by this PSFK article.
Yep, doing a small weekly gig over there. No reason, other than I like the blog (It’s one of my top three favorites) and I’ve known its founder, Piers Fawkes for a while now.
Just seemed like a fun idea. Note how I’ve used trademark “PSFK Purple” as my main background color etc.
Thanks Piers & Co for making it happen!
August 10, 2010
[Cartoon inspired by: “Take This Blog and Shove It!”]
Evidence of this ennui is everywhere. Amateur blogs, the original embodiment of Web democracy, are showing signs of decline. While professional bloggers are “a rising class,” according to Technorati, hobbyists are in retreat, and about 95 percent of blogs are launched and quickly abandoned. A recent Pew study found that blogging has withered as a pastime, with the number of 18– to 24-year-olds who identify themselves as bloggers declining by half between 2006 and 2009.
[Update] In the comments: “It’s not that blogging is the problem, it’s that people stop at blogging without doing the rest of the great work needed to make a living.”
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